Monday, November 28, 2016

I am so tired of hearing bits and pieces of reporting with no one getting to the heart of the matter. Some people blame the Standing Rock tribe for objecting to progress; others accuse protestors of inciting violence; some accuse law enforcement of provoking violence. What's this all about?

Well, recently I found out a court document has been released that tells a more-complete version of events. I encourage everyone to read it. It's a dry document, but readable.

The Dakota Access Pipeline
starring The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, The Army Corps of Engineers, and Energy Transfer Partners

I have read the court document. It includes a timeline of events from the pipe's early planning phase up through the present day.

The tribe alleges it was not consulted about the pipeline, but the court document states the company did try for almost 2 years to consult Standing Rock. Time and again from 2014 through the end of 2015 representatives attempted to get in touch with the Standing Rock tribe, but did not receive a response.

I wouldn't call it "stonewalling" on part of the Tribe, as some heavily-editorialized news sites claim, rather mismanagement. From 2014 to the end of 2015, the name Young is mentioned as the primary contact, and then in 2016, there seems to have been a change in leadership, and Young's name is nowhere to be found. Finally, the Tribe got someone in charge who actually responded to the company about the proposed pipeline and was willing to negotiate and work with the company.

Publicly, the Tribe's main objection to the pipe is the integrity of its water supply, but that apparently is not enough of a concern to halt construction, as the water supply in question is not actually on the Tribe's land, and the evaluation thereof is not in the Army Corps of Engineers' jurisdiction.

Much of the DAPL follows an already-excavated utility line, including the section that crosses the tribal land, so the company argues that there is no basis for objection, as the land had already been disturbed before. To be fair, a natural gas pipe is not the same as an oil pipe, so just because permission was granted in the past does not automatically grant permission for the DAPL. An oil pipe leaking will cause far more harm in the long term than a gas pipe breaking.

The only way the Standing Rock tribe can legally block the pipeline is for potential harm it may do to its sacred sites. Only a very small part of the pipe's path crosses tribal land, so this objection does not hold much weight. The company responsible for the pipe did consult with the Tribe multiple times in 2015 and 2016 and alter the course to avoid places of importance to Standing Rock.

The Corps did survey the land owned by the Tribe and identify places where the pipe would impact cultural sites, and when the pipe was rerouted, the Corps approved. According to the court document, the company has been accommodating and flexible, but that's not the point the Tribe is making. The real danger is off Tribal land, to the water supply, and the Tribe wanted the Corp to evaluate the environmental impact along the entire pipe, which it does not have authority to do.

Legally, the Tribe has no grounds to object to the pipeline, as almost all of it crosses private land, and the Corps does not have jurisdiction there. Only a few water crossings off tribal land fell under federal jurisdiction and needed Corps approval, which they received, and no evidence can be presented that harm may befall the water system by a potential leak at sites where permits were granted.

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Though the court document does tell the legal side of the story, it hardly condemns the Tribe for objecting to a pipe that is already 90% complete. I think it shows what the real point of the battle is: Standing Rock does not want an oil pipeline going through its land, or anywhere near its water supply, but apparently that option is not on the table.

A reading of the court document makes it obvious that harm to sacred sites is only the legal objection to the pipe. The real objection is potential harm to their water supply, but it cannot object to that because it is not on the tribe's land, and most of it is not federally regulated anyway.

Pipes break. It's inevitable. Sooner or later, the pipe will leak, and oil will contaminate the water and soil for years. The land may never recover. The environmental concerns are still real, even if the legality of the claims is flimsy.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

We've had a week to process this. A horrific, terrible week in which half the country went through the stages of grief.

Everyone is obsessing over Donald Trump. Trump is coming for the gays!--Trump is gonna deport ya!--Trump is gonna tear Washington down and build it back up right!

The President is a powerful person, but not the only thing we must watch.

What happened on November 8? The Republicans took control of congress and most state governments. That's it.

Republicans stand for the following:

defunding government services and privatizing them, claiming that running them like a business and letting competition and the free market regulate them will make the services more efficient and benefit everyone, but really it's just to open a new market for their rich friends to make a profit. Costs go up, quality of service goes down

cutting taxes on business, claiming it will create jobs, but really just lines the pockets of their campaign donors

deregulation of industry, claiming it frees corporations from the burden of big government so they will create more jobs, but really just increases corporate profit at the expense of workers

gutting workers' rights to make us more competitive on the world stage, they say, but just gives business more freedom to outsource and squeeze the American workforce

...and so forth down the neoliberal path. Democrats do many of these same things, too, but to a lesser extent. (I have not forgotten Obama has been pushing the TPP.)

Trump will no doubt throw some of his own agenda into it, and some of those things may actually gain traction. He may be serious about congressional term limits. He may be serious about the Trump Wall/Fence. But all of that has to go through congress, and the old guard is still in office, and they have their own agenda.

America didn't just give power to Trump. It gave power to the Republicans. Don't lose sight of that.

We don't know what Trump will do now, and that depends on the answer to the following question: why did he run for president? It took him sixteen years of trying to run for office to be taken seriously and get elected, but why did he bother? Does his heart really ache for the working class, or did he have another goal? We'll find out whose side he's really on when we see which bills he supports and which he does not, and what his subordinates do.

His recent 60 Minutes interview has calmed some people's nerves, thinking that now he will behave--all that racism and sexism and incompetence was the liberal media taking him out of context and people should listen to him. Keep in mind in this interview he proposed the people protesting his election may be "professional protestors," i.e. people hired by liberal groups to stir the population against him, as if there simply can't be people out there who don't want him to be president. And he only half-assed told his supporters to stop being violent against Muslims and Latinos, as if he didn't believe it could be happening. Between that interview, and others, I am not comfortable.

Maybe we'll get a presidency full of crazy antics just like his campaign, maybe we won't. Maybe he'll be a hands-off president and the real governing force will be the people to whom he delegates power, maybe not. Maybe he will be in way over his head, suffer a nervous breakdown, and resign, maybe not.

Forget about Trump. Stop obsessing over him and speculating on what he will do. His promises are irrelevant. The man himself is irrelevant. Republicans are in power again, and we already know what they will do.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

This wave of intense anti-Trump sentiment seems familiar... The pledges to obstruct everything he wants to do, calling him a tyrant, a fascist, evil incarnate, will destroy the country if elected!

We've heard this for the last 8 years. People said the exact same things about President Obama. Republicans called him a dictator, pledged to obstruct him no matter what, and refused to compromise even a little bit.

Of late, I have to wonder if this reaction to Trump is justified. The Right demonized Obama to the point of making him into a cartoon villain, but he certainly wasn't one. Now the Left is doing the same thing to Trump. Does that mean he isn't as bad as we think?

Does the Left want to be as obstructionist as the Right has been? All the things I hated about Republicans over the last 8 years... Democrats are hellbent on going down the same path of deadlocked no-compromise absolutism we've been on for most of Obama's term, and I don't like this direction.

Both sides can't be obstructionist forever. Something has to break at some point.

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He will probably not turn out to be as bad as we feared. Politicians hardly ever keep their promises once in office, so I don't think we have much to fear, but he is still a Republican, and Republicans stand for the same things they have for decades: supply-side economics, tax breaks for the rich, profit at any cost.

We fear what he will do once in office, but what if he said only what he needed to say to get elected? What if we fell into the trap of listening to the soundbites, letting the pundits demonize him just as they demonized Obama, and not actually listening to him? Let's ignore that for a moment and take a look at what actually happened. The racism, the sexism, the "fascist" appeal of his campaign, all of that could easily have been taken out of context and blown out of proportion, but that isn't even important.

Republicans are in control of both houses, and most state governments. Trump is filling his cabinet with cronies and conservative rich people who will perpetuate the business agenda. Setting aside the fear and hype, that's all that happened. We can and must stand against that.

I agree with Robert Reich about many things. Chief among them is that the Democratic party needs to embrace a progressive agenda if it wants to be seen as any kind of alternative to the Republicans. Maybe I'll live to see the day when neoliberalism can no longer hide from the general public.

Sunday, November 13, 2016

I think it's already obvious what a Trump presidency is going to be. People warned about his running mate back when he first chose Pence, and now it seems likely the Republicans chose Trump because he would get the votes, but selected Pence to actually carry out the Republican's agenda in office. The hidden power behind the scenes, as we saw with Cheney in W. Bush's administration.

It would have to be this way. Trump has no idea what to do, so he's going to delegate power to the people who know. I think conservative voters are going to be sorely disappointed when Trump turns out to be the very establishment he promised to fight.

Then again, so was Hillary Clinton, even if to a lesser extent.

I don't think we'll get a crazy, bizarre presidency out of this. It's looking to be a very normal event as the transition happens. Trump is shaping up to be a hands-off president, and all the power goes elsewhere, with Drumpf as the charismatic performer in the spotlight distracting the people from what's happening behind the curtain.

In many ways, Donald Trump will be a blessing to the powers that be. The press will report on all the stupid stuff he says every day, meanwhile actual leadership will happen in the dark. He will be a wonderful distraction from the real news.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

So... About that conspiracy theory of Trump being a Clinton plant to make her look good by comparison so we'd have no choice but to vote for Clinton.

Did it work?

Remember all those people who bitch and moan about politicians lying? Well, Donald Trump has done nothing but lie! He has blatantly made shit up in speeches. Everybody has called him out on that! Fact-checkers, comedians, the cable news--including Fox News!--and people voted for him anyway.

I predicted there were more Clinton lovers than haters out there, and I have never been so ashamed to be wrong in my life.

An extremely thin majority of The American People apparently wanted a B-list reality TV star as president [edit: thin majority of the electoral college, not the popular vote]. They wanted a guy who sounded nothing like a politician in high office to shake things up. They wanted somebody who wasn't part of "the establishment." They wanted a spoiled rich brat who inherited all his money, failed in every business venture he undertook, declared bankruptcy to get out of his failures, and then starred in a reality TV show to convince himself he was a great businessman. They'll get him, and I think they will find he was "the establishment" after all.

I didn't like Clinton much, but losing to Donald Trump is a fate I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.

All right, conservatives. We'll try your brand of "hope and change." Enjoy your broken promises. We can hope Trump will be an earthquake in Washington that will shake things up, knock down a few buildings, and make room for people to rebuild things the right way. We can hope he will do something so fucked up the people will unite against him, and it will be the 60s all over again!

I have a feeling it's going to be a lot more subtle than that though. Republicans in congress backed him because they knew people would vote for him, and they think they can control him once he's in office. When Obama got into office, he stopped talking so loose and easy. The same thing will happen to Trump, and since he is very much part of the establishment, we can look forward to more cronyism.

My feelings have been wrong before; there's no way to tell what's going to happen now, but here's to hope and change!